Prominent, controversial, feminist activist Caroline Farrow has announced on Twitter (archive) that she has been arrested, her electronic devices seized and she has been questioned over posts on Kiwifarms. She denies guilt and so far has not been charged. This follows on from my article a couple of weeks ago in which MHN drew an inference that the British National Crime Agency was behind the hack of Kiwifarms and multiple suspects would be interviewed from a list based on the database. Given police have not denied it and multiple people are complaining on Twitter about being arrested and / or questioned, I am pretty confident in the story. Now might be a good time for MHN to remind readers about the UK British concept of joint enterprise. 

Caroline Farrow credibly claims to have been arrested over alleged Kiwifarms posts. Whilst denying posting is a defence, responding to police questions about malicious online communicationa with, “women don’t have a penis” may not be the wisest response.

Your author is not going to belabour the, “MHN told you so”, point. Instead, it is worth directing readers to British law on joint enterprise. Joint enterprise is a UK law where people engaging in a common enterprise are liable in criminal law for all actions of the entire group. The doctrine originated from the English case of R v Swindall and Osborne (1846) in which two cart drivers had a race. A bystander was killed and both blamed the other. The court held it did not matter who killed the bystander, they were both criminally liable for deciding on the joint enterprise of a cart race.

In the case of Gnango, R. v [2011] UKSC 59 a young gang member named Armel Gnango became involved in a shootout. His opponent accidentally shot and killed a woman called, Magda Pniewska. Gnango was convicted of the murder even though he did not fire the shot. When the appeals over this reached the UK Supreme Court, the court asked the following question –

“1. Permission to appeal was granted in this case in order to enable this Court to consider the following point of law, certified by the Court of Appeal as being of general public importance: “If (1) D1 and D2 voluntarily engage in fighting each other, each intending to kill or cause grievous bodily harm to the other and each foreseeing that the other has the reciprocal intention, and if (2) D1 mistakenly kills V in the course of the fight, in what circumstances, if any, is D2 guilty of the offence of murdering V?”

The court had an answer:

“65. For these reasons we would answer the certified question in the affirmative, allow this appeal and restore the respondent’s conviction for murder.”

In Britain, you can commit murder by being shot at by someone intending to kill you. Some people argue that the law is harsh and a number of NGOs and charities have sought reform. For example, Justice Gap Magazine said this in an article, “Half of women convicted under joint enterprise not even present a scene” (archive).

It is important to remember that Caroline Farrow has not been convicted and denies the posts she is accused of. She is innocent until proven guilty and has not yet been convicted with any crime.

Even so, the reason this should terrify any contributor to Kiwifarms is that, well, Continue reading →